82 JOURNAL AND PROCEEDINGS. 



accepted and approved of and have received the sanction of profes- 

 sional educationists that we are to consider, but it is those that are 

 generally neglected. 



I have desired to call your attention to these because of my firm 

 belief that there are many valuable aids to education which have 

 either been relegated to the shelves of a cobwebby desuetude or else 

 are still regarded as mere so-called fads, which are only thought fit 

 to be considered as mere pastimes or recreations for individuals 

 contemptuously called cranks by those who alone in the eyes of the 

 world are ordinarily deemed to be truly wise. As on another occa- 

 sion I had the honour of offering myself as a champion in the cause 

 of fads, I do not intend this evening to more than casually refer to 

 their value from an educational point of view, but I shall endeavor 

 to discuss the other methods that seem to me to be now neglected. 

 At the same time I must admit that I have no doubt that in many 

 branches taken up in the schools the differences between the methods 

 that are now in vogue and those used in my school days are to the 

 credit of modern methods, but as I said I wish to call attention to 

 some that I have good reason for believing are now discredited in 

 great measure. 



Before entering upon the consideration of these methods, it 

 would be as well, perhaps, to define what is meant by the compre- 

 hensive term, education. Literally it means to lead or draw out, but 

 although the office of the educator can to a certain extent be thus 

 described, still there are other processes at work or that should be 

 Such as those of building and strengthening these tender faculties of 

 he intellect which are thus brought to light. 



Various similies have been used, and one with which we are 

 particularly familiar was, I can well remember, to be found in one of 

 the school books in use twenty-five years ago. This allegory I think 

 was from Addison's Spectator, which expresses the idea of education 

 thus : " What sculpture is to the block of marble, education is to the 

 human soul." I have not my old school books at hand and am 

 indebted to a more modern work for my quotation, but I can well 

 remember how the simile took my fancy of the statue being con- 

 cealed in the block of marble until the sculptor by repeated efforts 

 produced the statue and gave it its fine finish and brought to light 

 its various beauties of form and outline. 



